


Anya/Giles Drabbles

by dreamsofspike



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-22 22:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9628109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsofspike/pseuds/dreamsofspike
Summary: A collection of my drabbles for the pairing Anya/Giles from BtVS.





	1. Something There

Once the memory spell is reversed, things move very quickly.  
  
Within the space of a day, Tara is moving out of the house, Buffy is more withdrawn than ever, and Giles is getting ready to leave the country.  
  
Xander's quiet and moody, doesn't touch her... barely looks at her.  
  
That's all right with Anya.  
  
She's having a hard time getting the image of another man out of her head.   
  
It didn't really mean anything. It was a single accidental kiss born of a miscommunication. They thought they were married, and therefore they imagined a sexual attraction between them.  
  
When the spell ended -- so did the attraction.  
  
Or... it should have.  
  
Anya found herself both relieved and disappointed that Giles left before she could figure out why it didn't seem to be going away.  
  
She had so little experience with human emotions, but when she thought back on that brief, tender kiss in the Magic Box, there was no way that she could deny it to herself.   
  
It might not be love, might not even be _real_ \-- but there was _something_ there.  
  
It was just too bad that she might never have the chance to figure out what it was.


	2. "You Don't Know How Lovely You Are"

As Xander storms out of the Magic Box, a tense silence descends over the room, as both the Watcher and the ex-demon try their best to pretend as if he didn't just witness yet another harsh verbal dressing down of her at the hands of her fiancee.  
  
Giles is the first to give in.  
  
She's sniffling back tears as he places a gentle hand on her shoulder. She doesn't turn around, doesn't willingly allow him to see her emotions -- but she doesn't pull away, either.  
  
"He shouldn't speak to you like that."  
  
"He's... trying to help me," she listlessly argues, though there's not much heart in it. "He just wants me to be more human. I know I'm... not like a normal woman. I want to have sex more often than is physically possible for most normal human males. I love money more than is appropriate, and I seem to have an unparalleled talent for saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. Pretty much _every_ time. I know all that..."  
  
"But... you don't know how lovely you are."  
  
Anya turns toward him slowly, eyes wide and stunned at the unexpected tenderness in his voice. Giles looks a bit self-conscious and uncertain, his gaze focused on the counter rather than on her face, but he persists softly.  
  
"You don't know... how incredibly brilliant you are... how unique a quality your honest, forthright manner is." He pauses, tentatively meeting her awestruck eyes as he concludes, "You are a beautiful, intelligent, utterly irreplacable woman -- and you have no idea of any of that -- because all he can seem to talk about are the things of which he disapproves."  
  
Giles lets out a sort of shy little laugh, shrugging slightly as he points out, "It's not as if he's God's gift..."  
  
His words break off in a muffled cry of surprise as he finds his mouth suddenly obstructed by Anya's. Her arms entwine around his neck, and she kisses him until they're both breathless. His expression softens as he smiles down at her, the light in his eyes matching the glow he just put on her face -- a glow that's so often lacking.  
  
She looks positively giddy as she kisses him again before drawing back to give him an expectant smile.  
  
"Tell me more..."


	3. Temptation

She can't get him out of her head.  
  
She's supposed to get married, supposed to spend her life with Xander. She _wants_ to spend her life with him. And yet, every time he touches her, she can't get the memory of another man's touch -- another man's kiss -- out of her head.  
  
Her job at the Magic Box is an exercise in self-restraint -- or torture, she can't quite decide which. Sometimes she wonders if she's the victim of someone else's vengeance wish, to be faced with this constant temptation, and not be able to fulfill it.  
  
To give in would be to give up her entire future.  
  
But... she's not quite sure it's the future she wants anymore.


	4. Thought You Were Dead

They stand at the edge of the chasm for a long time, staring down at what's left of the dream and nightmare that was once Sunnydale. Buffy's thoughts are filled with her lost love, only just rediscovered -- while not one man but two stand staring into the crater, thinking of the woman who fell, down in the chaos of that battle that's swiftly fading to mere memory.  
  
There are tears streaking Xander's face as he climbs on board the bus, wanting to be alone with his grief.  
  
Giles stands on the edge a while longer as the others slowly file toward the bus, thinking of all the lost opportunities over the course of the last year.  
  
And now, he'll never have the chance to tell her.  
  
What he doesn't know is that, at the moment before her death, she was given another chance -- to die as a human, or to be restored to her vengeance demon status and survive.   
  
When she shows up several weeks later in Cleveland, Giles is surprised when she only comes to _him_ , unwilling for the others to know that she's alive again yet.   
  
She doesn't want to hurt Xander by letting him know that she's alive -- and doesn't want to be with him.  
  
It's only after the other Scoobies have scattered to the four winds in their various busy pursuits that she settles nearby, and dares to begin a tentative relationship with the aging Watcher.   
  
She thinks that in time, she can find a way back to a human state -- and thinks that perhaps she wouldn't mind if it's another couple of decades, so that she and Giles can live out the rest of their years together.


	5. What We Never Had

He thinks that sometimes, the best love affairs of our lives are the ones we never actually have.  
  
After that accidental, spell-induced kiss in the Magic Box, there have been many times that Giles catches himself looking at Anya, thinking of it... thinking of what else might have been. And sometimes... he catches her looking back.  
  
He knows better than to pursue it.   
  
Even the fragile feelings of young Xander aside, there are so many reasons why it wouldn't work. He knows it'd only be a matter of time before her too-frank ways managed to leave him wounded or hurt or just simply annoyed. He knows that her rather dubious morality would clash with his strict Watcher training.   
  
He knows they wouldn't last.  
  
No, it's so much better to simply cherish the thoughts of those brief instants they shared, and the sweet imaginations of what might have been.


End file.
